The biennial world book fair is a fantastic opportunity for book readers to not only purchase books at a discounted rate, but also an opportunity to meet their favorite authors at the book fair and witness book launches and participate in the literary events scheduled to take place at the 20th World Book Fair.

Like other bookworms, we too would be attending the World Book Fair and will give you all the coverage here on Scribbles of Soul, so subscribe to our RSS feeds and email updates to keep updated about the World Book Fair and to read our forthcoming book reviews.

World Book Fair 2012 is a post from: Scribbles of Soul

The particular emphasis on family and its happiness and unhappiness in the very opening line of Anna Karenina lays bare Leo Tolstoy’s intention of creating a magnum opus based on probably the smallest, yet the most important unit of society, called FAMILY.

As I picked up Anna Karenina, supposedly the first attempt at novel form by Tolstoy, comprising of more than 800 pages, divided into two volumes and eight parts, I had an inkling that for at least a month, I am going to live in a world very different from my routine life. As when I read Crime and Punishment, I was gloomy for a few days, so I expected Anna Karenina to depress me even more, as I was tricked by the opening statement, considering the novel to be a steady stream of broken hearts, jealous intrigues and infidel treacheries.

However, to my utter surprise the first part of the novel brought a smile on my face. Anna Karenina had much more to offer than just sufferings, it has humor, irony, wit and a curious mix of tragedy with comedy. In stark contrast to War and Peace, where a death scene was placed at the very beginning, in Anna Karenina, the initial few pages are written in a lighter, almost comic vein by the author.

Though, the beginning depicts a domestic quarrel, Tolstoy successfully portrays the event to be just a foil for a much more interesting plot that would primarily feature Levin, Anna, Kitty and Vronsky. All of these characters are unique in their own ways and they are connected in a peculiar manner by Leo’s loosely woven mesh of human emotions, sympathies and love. There are several plots in the novel and ultimately each plot and character falls in its allotted place.

The novel is named after Anna Karenina, a married noble woman, living in Petersburg with her husband Count Karenin. Anna is Oblonsky’s sister and comes to Moscow to act as a mediator and save her brother’s marriage. However, as luck would have it, she herself falls in love with another man and loses her status in society by becoming a mistress, leaving her husband and son. Will she be able to severe her connections and yet live happily with the man of her dreams is one of the main plots of this novel. But, it will be wrong to say that the story revolves around Anna, as it is the first novel, where the Heroine is dead even before the novel ended, and the story is still carried forward without her presence.

As I said before, there are at least three stories that run parallel in Anna Karenina. It is a story of paradoxes and likewise the characters juxtapose each other in the most unexpected ways. One of the main character of the novel, that really impressed me is Levin, who is highly moralistic though impractical. He wishes to work for the welfare of peasants and yet wants to earn enough money out of farming and lead a luxurious life. Despite being illogical and confused, I think Levin is the only male protagonist, who was ever so much highlighted in a woman centric novel. Most of the best written episodes, be it the gaily captured marriage of Levin, the exciting hunting scenes, the tragic death scene of a sick brother or the pathetic confusion of an expectant father, revolve around Levin. He comes forth as a literary adaptation of Leo Tolstoy, and is even made the Hero in the last part of the novel, as the Heroine had already died.

Another character that deserves a mention is Kitty. She is a regular young girl, who is impressed with Levin’s chivalry, but is floored by the charm of a handsome, socially adept military man Vronsky. She rejects Levin for Vronsky and is ready to embark on an adventurous Ball to dance with the dashing man of her dreams. But, Vronsky is enamored by the celestial beauty of Anna Karenina and unluckily he rejects Kitty for Anna. Kitty suffers a terrible heartbreak, but ultimately reconciles to her fate and gets married to Levin, who as I said above is slated to become an unsung hero.

Would Anna be able to deal with her precarious situation as an illegal wife, would Levin be able to make peace with being the second choice of his beloved wife, and would Vronsky be able to accept the highly agitated, jealous Anna as his life partner, are some of the questions wonderfully dealt with in this novel of destiny, death and human relationships, contradicting the very love, one seeks in a family.

I have never read anything like Anna Karenina before, and even though I have just finished reading it, having spent almost a month in the company of larger than life characters of Tolstoy’s magnum opus, I am already feeling a void in my life. Just as we miss our loved ones, when they leave, I am missing the ever questioning Levin, happy go lucky Stephen and grossly misunderstood Anna. The novel is a timeless classic, portraying the ever challenging quest of human beings to change their destiny and their desperate attempts to run away from life.

Last but certainly not the least, as I read the English version of Anna Karenina, I think this review would be incomplete without a mention of the commendable job done by translators Louise and Aylmer Maude in the Wordsworth Classics Edition, making the world of Tolstoy alive in a foreign language, while retaining its Russian spirit. I also liked the thoughtful addition of footnotes, explaining the meaning of French phrases often used by Tolstoy in narrative. In short, I absolutely loved this novel despite some philosophical meanderings, and I am looking forward to read this saga of human emotions and domestic strife once again.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy is a post from: Scribbles of Soul

1. All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

2. There are people who when they meet a rival,no matter in what, at once shut their eyes to everything good in him and see only the bad. There are others who on the contrary try to discern in a lucky rival the qualities which have enabled him to succeed, and with aching hearts seek only the good in him.

3. The first explosion of jealousy ,once past,could not be repeated.

4. One of us is stupid, and you know its impossible to say so of oneself.

5. No one is satisfied with his position, but everyone is satisfied with his wit.

6. Often the happiness of marriages founded on reason crumbles to dust because the very passion that was disregarded makes itself felt later.

7. If it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.

8. By digging into our souls, we often dig up what might better have remained there unnoticed.

9. Nightingales are not fed on fables.

10. You can’t imagine what a pleasure this complete laziness is to me: not a thought in my brain – you might send a ball rolling through it.

11. Love them that hate you, but you can’t love them whom you hate.

12. The church became so quiet that the drops of wax were heard falling from the candles.

Leo Tolstoy is a post from: Scribbles of Soul

1. Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

2. S’pose Henry opened his mouth – what then? If he didn’t shut his it up powerful quick he’d lose a lie every time.

3. A person does a low down thing, and then he don’t want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it ain’t no disgrace.

4. If you’re with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain’t sleepy – if you are anywheres where it won’t do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upward of a thousand places.

5. Ransomed what’s that?…. Well, I don’t know. But per’aps if we keep them till they’re ransomed, it means that we keep them till they’re dead.

6. Here a captive heart busted

7. Here a lonely heart broke, and a worn spirit went to its rest, after thirty seven years of solitary captivity.

8. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars and.. discuss about whether they was made or just happened. Jim said the moon could’a laid them.. as I’ve seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done.

Mark Twain is a post from: Scribbles of Soul

Though, Mark Twain is more famous for Adventures of Tom Sawyer and I do have a faint recollection of having read it in my childhood, but Huckleberry Finn is definitely the first of Twain’s books that I have read with so much attention and I am more than satisfied with his comic timing, a larger than life approach towards children’s fantasies and a beautiful inlay of words laden with choicest phrases uttered in Southern American accents. I think while reading the present novel, as an adult, I was able to grasp the finer nuances of this apparently childish, yet fantastic adventurous tale.

Simply speaking, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the story of a young lad, who runs away from his home, to get rid of his violent oppressive father and embarks on an adventurous journey down south. But, as Huck continues his voyage, he realizes that it is not easy to survive in the ruthless world, without support from friends and loved ones. And, in such difficult times, he develops intimacy with a run away slave, Jim the Nigger.

Actually, Jim is the one who is suspected of murdering Huck and is in real danger. As Huck realizes that he has landed Jim into big trouble, he becomes tenderhearted towards him and forgets that he is just a slave, for whom nobody cares for. As the story progresses, Huck and Jim make friends with two small time rogues, self proclaimed Duke and King and unknowingly become accomplices in their petty crimes. How Huck would get rid of these rogues and would he be able to save Jim the Nigger from a doomed fate, forms the backbone of this simple, yet hilarious novel.

The first thing that struck a humorous chord was a sarcastic notice put up by the author at the very beginning of the novel, where he humorously warned his readers to read without any expectations of motive, moral or plot. This warning was enough to set the tone of the novel as comic and satiric. And this well meaning tongue-in-cheek tone continues throughout the novel. The book is laden with acidic, witty remarks about social evils like slavery, superstitions, feudalism and duels which were prevalent in those times and are brilliantly incorporated into the story as seen through the eyes of a young boy.

Huck is pained to see Jim in shackles, but is afraid of freeing him for the very reason that slavery was at that time a socially sanctioned sin. A gruesome duel takes place before the eyes of Huck in a small village, and a deadly feud breaks out between two rich families in another village. As Huck moves through these places and gains an understanding as to how these social evils are eating into the benevolence and love of Americans for their fellow beings, similar emotions are roused in the reader as well, through the powerful tools of well timed tongue-in-cheek narrative of Mark Twain.

Another fact that really impressed me was the childish exaggeration, the ability of a child to boast of impossible deeds with utmost conviction. Be it the unnecessarily prolonged and stupidly executed dark deep laid plans to try to help Jim or Huck’s naivety in uselessly trying to impress a woman by donning girl’s clothes – Twain’s ability to relate to a child’s view was apparent, as he even described nature as seen through the eyes of a child. And, there was a plethora of new word formation, such as rapscallions, flapadoodle and many more, just as a child would often do while narrating his idle overstated fanciful stories. There were many moments when I burst out laughing, and many more when a slight smile played on my lips, as the narrative reminded me of my own childhood. All in all, Mark Twain establishes his authority as a sensitive yet entertaining author in this one of its kind comic epic.

However, there were a few glitches that I encountered while reading the present edition of the novel. And these obstructions did mitigate the pure pleasure I could have derived, had these been not there. The foremost amongst these was the heading of the chapters which is done quite clumsily in the edition I purchased. Here the chapters are just given numbers, and the actual name appears on the top of the page, instead of being there at the very beginning. This hampered my understanding somewhat as I was quite engrossed in deciphering different accents.

Further, there are numerous dialects used in the narrative. At the beginning at least, I had to put in extra effort to understand the language as the book is mostly written in incorrect English, as was spoken by the natives, complete with their different accents and openly flouts syntax and grammar rules. It was really tough to decipher what different characters are saying, and I had to re-read some phrases and words again and again to understand the actual meaning. However, as I got hold of these dialects and accents, it became easier and I could feel that perhaps this shortcoming would work in the favor of the author, if listened to as an Audio Book.

Also at times, the story was stretched a bit too far, especially as Tom Sawyer enters, the novel becomes a steady stream of impossible events being executed by two young boys, way beyond their abilities and bordering on nonsense chatter.

But, all in all, these nitpicks are irrelevant when I compare these to the sheer enjoyment I had, while reading this classic by one of the most well known early American writer. I am delighted at having read this epic and do plan to re-read ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ so that I could re-evaluate the merits and demerits while sailing in the jerking ship of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, out on an adventurous journey in the unknown waters and strange shores. It is a well written book that deserves as much praise as it had when it was first written. And, more than anything, this comic breather has renewed my vigor and interest in the emotionally exciting yet intellectually challenging Anna Karenina. Definitely, worth a read!

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain is a post from: Scribbles of Soul